The naked and the nude.
Last night I drove past a man who was walking into heavy traffic wearing nothing but sandals. Even weirder, he had a wad of money stuffed in his mouth, the dong bills spilling out like pink and green tongues. At first I thought, crazy, but as I sped away I began to wonder if there was something else going on. Was this a one-man protest, maybe? (Which, in Vietnam, would be truly crazy.) Or perhaps it was some kind of forced public humiliation, like a punishment for trying to steal money from the mob. I don’t know if organized crime even exists in Vietnam, but the scene looked like it could have come straight out of a Takeshi Kitano film.
This was in fact the second case of public nudity I’ve witnessed here recently. A couple of weekends ago, I saw a Western man–a rather, er, endomorphic Western man–on the sidewalk completely naked, just chatting away on his cell phone. I was across the street with some friends on a crowded bar patio; he was standing in front of a hotel–a nice hotel–absorbed in his conversation, like it was the most ordinary thing in the world to be fat and naked on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City. After a few minutes, however, when he finally noticed the crowd of onlookers gawking, he started to ham it up and began performing in ways that I still wish I could un-see. Movie reference point: early John Waters.
Twice might be a coincidence, but three times will constitute an official trend. Mondo Vietnam? Communist Gomorrah? Will keep you posted.
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October 21, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Alana
Who among us hasn’t been naked on the roadside with a mouthfulla dong, at one time or another? Judge not, lest etc.
October 22, 2007 at 3:35 pm
The Threadbare Ed Gein Jacket
Are you hitting the Methadone Slurpees again?
October 23, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Marc
I think Vietnam would really raise its profile if it became a clothing-optional country.
Mouthful of dong. Really, Tom. It would be so much easier for a country to become more comfortable with their beautiful, obese nudity if it weren’t for sophomoric types such as you.
On a more serious note: this all occurred without your camera handy. Bra. Vo. Make sure we get some more pictures of trees. I’ll just imagine the naked fattie dancing in front of them.
I’m curt with you because I miss you.
October 24, 2007 at 5:31 am
Thomas
Dong. Slurpees. The tone is really deteriorating around here.
I missed you too, Marc. Thanks for reminding me what an a-hole you are. It’s much easier just to despise you.
Seriously, though, your point is grudgingly, hatefully, well-taken. I think I need to pick up a cheap, much smaller camera to carry around with me.
I think you ignore the raw carnality of our leafy friends, however. Surely you remember Joyce Kilmer’s erotically-charged paean:
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast;
Etc. Unclothe your buttoned-up little mind. Stop being so anthropocentric.
PS I am going to spell “pressed” like that from now on. Eg: I bench-prest 225 pounds last night.
October 24, 2007 at 3:50 pm
The Threadbare Ed Gein Jacket
It’s amazing how those two verses from that hoary old clunker are still able to reawaken my onetime elementary schoolboy’s sense of the forbidden, the taboo, and the naughty–and dare I say? the “highly illogical”…
Because of that bit of persistently immortal doggerel, the Joyce Kilmer Service Area on the New Jersey Turnpike has always struck me as the single most erotic locale in all of the so-called “Garden State”.